Grant Recipients Grants to Artists Dance 2018

Ligia Lewis

Portrait of Ligia Lewis looking up at the camera, with curly brown hair, red lipstick, and a green bomber jacket.
Photo by Georg Gatsas.
  • 2018 Grants to Artists
  • Dance
  • Dancer, Performer, Choreographer
  • Born 1983, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
  • Lives in Berlin, Germany
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  • Additional Information
  • ligialewis.com

Beyond the material conditions that enabled me to pay more collaborators and to develop a new larger scale work, I have been able to put some money aside for myself to be better prepared for the precariousness of a dancer's/choreographer's life. Despite all of the rich artistic possibilities that the year provided, the shear knowing that a break could be had, made this award of particular personal significance. Psychologically softening the pressure to consistently be in production and/or presenting in order to make ends meet, allows me more artistic freedom in pursuing residencies, workshops and lectures for the upcoming year that otherwise would not have been afforded to me... your generous support will extend beyond this working year and spill into supporting very basic and mundane needs of staying injury free, curious, and available for new artistic impulses.

- Ligia Lewis, December 21, 2018

Artist Statement

With my choreography, I attempt to build a language that is both personal and abstract. Meticulously crafted forms of embodiment meet sonic and visual metaphors that give space for the emergent and the indeterminate while tending to the mundane. I am particularly drawn to how time unfolds in a performance, specifically the messy unraveling of the interpersonal in a saturated space that allows for difficult emotions to be staged. Trying to achieve an embodied dramaturgy in a field of play, I hope to allow for perceptions to shift from the familiar to the unfamiliar, stretching the capacities to care for and therefore give care to movements, speech, affects, thoughts, relations, utterances and the bodies that hold them. In doing so, I hope to make the stage a site to materialize the enigmatic, the poetic, and the dissonant.

- December 2017

Biography

Ligia Lewis is a dancer and choreographer whose work has been presented in multiple contexts including the theater, museums, and galleries. Engaging with affect, empathy, and the sensate, her choreography considers the social inscriptions of the body while provoking its nuances and potentiality. Alongside Lewis's choreographic practice, she collaborates with and performs for others.

Lewis's 2018 FCA grant supported the completion of two new works: so something happened get over it; no nothing happened get with it, as part of Jaou Tunis in Tunis, Tunisia; and Water Will (in melody), which premiered at Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Germany. Lewis's minor matter (2016), which premiered at Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Germany, is presented in red and gives life to a vibrant poetic and social space materialized through the dynamic interplay of light and sound meeting a rich physicality. Sorrow Swag (2014), which premiered at Human Resources Los Angeles and continues to be presented in Europe, gives form to the textures of grief and sadness, emerging in a saturated blue.

Lewis's other choreographies include Melancholy: A White Mellow Drama (2015), a comical yet pointed critique on the color white, which opened at Fahrenheit by FLAX, Los Angeles, and was also presented at the Do Disturb Festival at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France. The site-specific work $ (2012), situated in a limousine, was presented at X-Choreografen/Tanz im August, Berlin, Germany. Sensation 1 (2011), a silent wailing score amplified in total silence, was first presented at Tanz im August, Berlin, Germany, and later at Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland. As a dancer, Lewis has performed and toured extensively for artists including Ariel Efraim Ashbel, Mette Ingvartsen, and Eszter Salamon. She has collaborated with visual artist Wu Tsang, musical artist Twin Shadow, and with the DJ collective NON Worldwide.

Managed and produced by Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Lewis is also the recipient of a residency from the Baryshnikov Arts Center (2018); a Factory Artist residency at tanzhaus nrw (2017-19); funding from the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe (2017-18); a Bessie Award for Outstanding Production for minor matter (2017); and of a Prix Jardin d' Europe from ImPulsTanz for Sorrow Swag (2015). She received a B.F.A. in dance and choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2005.

Close up of multiple tangled bodies standing and supporting one another by holding into each other.

Performance still from minor matter, at the Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom, 2017. Performers: Jonathan Gonzalez, Ligia Lewis, and Tiran Willemse. Photo by Martha Glenn.

Three performers in a red lighted room lay on the floor. Two of them laying sideways prop their arms and one leg up, while the third lays down on their front.

Performance still from minor matter, at Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Germany, 2016. Performers: Jonathan Gonzalez, Ligia Lewis, and Tiran Willemse. Photo by Martha Glenn.

Three figures lay on the ground tangled on top of each other, with two facing the front and the third an upside down direction. The room they are in lighted red.

Performance still from minor matter, at Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Germany, 2016. Performers: Jonathan Gonzalez, Ligia Lewis, and Tiran Willemse. Photo by Martha Glenn.

Close up of two bodies next to one another tangling their hands together.

Performance still from minor matter, at Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Germany, 2016. Performers: Jonathan Gonzalez, Ligia Lewis, and Tiran Willemse. Photo by Martha Glenn.

A figure with blond afro hair and red lipstick stands still as a hand in a white lacy glove inserts a finger through the side of their mouth.

Performance still from Water Will (in Melody), at Performance Space New York, NY, 2018. Performers: Titilayo Adebayo, Dani Brown, Ligia Lewis, Jolie Ngemi, and Susanne Sachsse. Photo by Maria Baranova.

Four performers, two in sheer and leather clothing and two in white sheer and plastic clothing on stage. The two dressed in black stand still with arms upwards while the two in white move in a running motion.

Performance still from Water Will (in Melody), at Performance Space New York, NY, 2018. Performers: Titilayo Adebayo, Dani Brown, Ligia Lewis, Jolie Ngemi, and Susanne Sachsse. Photo by Maria Baranova.

The silhouette of a figure in a white dress stands on a stage with rain pouring down. Their features are shadowed.

Performance still from Water Will (in Melody), at Performance Space New York, NY, 2018. Performers: Titilayo Adebayo, Dani Brown, Ligia Lewis, Jolie Ngemi, and Susanne Sachsse. Photo by Maria Baranova.

A performer in a white button up with plastic transparent and a black hat put their hands on the front by touching the elbows with each, while crying.

Performance still from Water Will (in Melody), at Performance Space New York, NY, 2018. Performers: Titilayo Adebayo, Dani Brown, Ligia Lewis, Jolie Ngemi, and Susanne Sachsse. Photo by Maria Baranova.

A figure in a white tank top, white shorts and transparent overalls crouches down with their arms open in a dark lit space.

Performance still from Water Will (in Melody), at Performance Space New York, NY, 2018. Performers: Titilayo Adebayo, Dani Brown, Ligia Lewis, Jolie Ngemi, and Susanne Sachsse. Photo by Maria Baranova.

A performer dressed in white swaggers around a room with chipped paint on the walls, as an audience around them watches.

Performance still from FCA-supported so something happened, get over it; no nothing happened get with it, as part of Jaou Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia, 2018.

Excerpt from minor matter, at Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Germany, 2016. Performers: Jonathan Gonzalez, Ligia Lewis, and Tiran Willemse.

Excerpt from Melancholy: A White Mellow Drama, at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France, 2016. Performer: Boglarka Borcsok.

A figure in white shorts and sneakers stand in room lighted in blue with a misty fog surrounding them.

Performance still from Sorrow Swag, at Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Germany, 2014. Performer: Brian Getnick. Photo by Dieter Hartwig.

Excerpt from Sorrow Swag, at Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Germany, 2014. Performer: Brian Getnick.